The Ace is Played
by TruePlainHearts
Summary: A post-finale songfic. Felicity thinks about what is next while sitting at Oliver's bedside.


**I just finished all my exams so I'm back to writing, YAY! An update for Wicked Smiles, Wicked Dreams is pending but I just had to write a songfic to this song. So beautiful and so fitting! I first saw Gabrielle Aplin as a supporting act to Ed Sheeran at his Australian concert. Check her out, she is fantastic.**

**This is in Felicity's point of view. I love writing Felicity but I swear I will get around to writing in Olivers POV. It is set just after the season finale. This is my first attempt at a songfic (I used to write under a different pen name so I have written more than just WS, WD), so please let me know what you think.**

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Song: "More Than Friends" by Gabrielle Aplin

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_**You've been awake for hours**__**  
**__**I've been awake for days**__**  
**__**My eyes to feel like I'm asleep**__**  
**__**stuck inside an empty dream**__**  
**__**Question if this is even real**__**  
**__**a cliché way for me to feel.**_

I sat in the chair beside Oliver's hospital bed for the third day in a row, watching the dark vacancy in eyes as his guilt consumed him. His physical wounds were beginning to heal but the earthquake still tortured his mind and soul. With his mother in jail, Thea hiding with Roy in the Glades, Laurel off grieving and his best friend dead, I was the only one to stay by his side. Occasionally Carly would push John in on a wheelchair to visit Oliver but for the most part he was confined to his own hospital room, trying to heal.

After the Foundry had stopped shaking on that catastrophic night, I had climbed the stairs to be met with scenes I thought only existed in films. There were people running, horribly injured with blood and tears streaming down their face. Others were collapsed on the pavements, crying over the broken bodies of their loved ones. Even now, to think about the things I'd seen made my chest constrict and my hands tremble. How Merlyn had ever thought he was doing any good in levelling the Glades escaped my comprehension. He had shamelessly and unapologetically murdered children, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, friends and lovers. He had even murdered his own son.

I glanced at Oliver again and I could tell all the same thoughts were running through his head and, like me, he was struggling to process. Oliver had barely slept, only being dragged into unconsciousness when the physical exhaustion of injuries temporarily overcame his worrying and misplaced guilt. I had slept even less. Constantly by Oliver's side; waiting and worrying with Carly while he and Diggle had been in surgery, pacing anxiously by Oliver's bed as I had waited for him to wake up and set all my fears that he never would to rest. Now we both sat in complete silence, not wanting to be alone but not wanting to talk about what had happened either. We were simply there for each other, as we always had been.

The doctors had told me that Oliver would be discharged soon and I was struggling to think about what might happen then. At least for now I knew what I had to do; be by Oliver's side. After he was released from hospital everything became uncertain. He would go home to his empty mansion that now held so many tarnished memories of betrayal, loss and hopelessness. I would go home to my empty apartment and try to rebuild my life. My future at Queen Consolidated was uncertain, and my continued involvement in "Team Arrow" was even more so. I may not have lived in the Glades or been Merlyn's target but my life had been irreparably altered by the earthquake, just as everyone's had.

The idea of John, Oliver and I growing apart and eventually so distant that we barely saw one another was more than I could bear. We were like a family and, although my life had functioned perfectly fine before I had met them, I now couldn't imagine my life without them. More specifically, they had been even more affected, both physically and mentally, by our failure and I wanted to help them get through it in any way that I could. I couldn't let us drift apart. I wouldn't.

_**Only two more days **_

_**to kill the mess we've made  
And give the lions something to hunt for  
Cause now the ace is played  
the desks are under queen of spades  
There's nothing left for us to hope for.**_

The news crews and jackal reporters had gathered around the hospital almost immediately after Oliver was admitted. They couldn't get access to Moira because she was locked away in Starling City's maximum security prison and Thea was thankfully hiding out in the Glades were no one could find her though she had sent Oliver a message that she was safe while he was in surgery. There was only Oliver left to go after even though he had been the one who had tried to stop everything from happening; to right the wrongs of his family. Unfortunately, they didn't care. They all just wanted someone to go after, someone they could blame. Apparently anyone with the last name of "Queen" would do. I watched Oliver and my heart broke for everything that he would have to face after he got out of that hospital bed. His father was dead and his mother had betrayed him and the entire city. His best friend had died in his arms and Thea wanted nothing more to run away from everything, not that anyone could blame her. Oliver wasn't the type to run away though. No, he would stay and help a city that despised him because he is a good man. There was little he could do now that the device had gone off but try to take care of some of the devastation I knew he blamed himself for. There was no hope left, only the slow trudge of humanity as it soldiered on in the face of such heartbreaking devastation.

_**I've watched you break yourself in two...**_

_**Can we go back to where broken things only needed plasters to mend**__**.**_

There was nothing I could do except be by his side, if only to let him know that he wasn't entirely alone. To make him see that not everyone saw him as a villain. I knew the truth. Oliver had tried to make Starling City a better place and overcome all those who sought to destroy it. Malcolm had proved too powerful and the terrible plan he had spent years perfecting happened despite all of our best efforts. He had destroyed the Glades and so many innocent lives and for what? Because he believed they were all corrupt. As I had stumbled through the streets that night I had seen innocent, grieving people who were the _victims_ of corruption, not the cause. Because of one man's insane grudge, so many were dead, injured, grieving and without hope.

As the vivid light of sunset began to fill the silent room Oliver and I were frozen in, I felt a single tear fall down my cheek. It surprised even me because I really didn't think I had any tears left to cry. There, sitting in that room as it filled up with the dark gold light of the setting sun, I realised that there could never just be light and dark, good and corrupt.

_**We watch the sun go down**__**  
**__**but never feel the end**__**  
**__**Cause I know the sun and darkness are**__**  
**__**more than friends**__**.**_

No matter how hard Oliver, Diggle and I fought to overcome the evils of Starling City there would always be more to take their place... but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. Despite the pain, the loss and the failures I knew we had to keep fighting. For the first time in hours, as though he could hear my thoughts, Oliver met my gaze and I saw that the guilt was giving way to something much more powerful... determination. It was then I knew... we weren't done yet.

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**I hope you liked it. It is just a little bit of a drabble because I am missing Arrow so much. Let me know what you thought of it. I intended for this to be a one shot but let me know if you think it would be better as a multi-chapter fic.**


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